Decontamination of Hanover plant still a long way off

A final plan to clean up a complicated and high-priority contamination site won’t be ready until the second half of 2013, state environmental officials told nearly 100 residents Wednesday night at a public forum at Hanover High School.

A final plan to clean up a complicated and high-priority contamination site won’t be ready until the second half of 2013, state environmental officials told nearly 100 residents Wednesday night at a public forum at Hanover High School.

And that’s an optimistic timeline, said Phillip Weinberg, director of the southeast region for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Longtime residents, parents of young children and a cancer survivor were among the people who questioned state officials and town leaders, expressing a mix of worry and frustration about the high levels of contamination first identified more than 20 years ago at the site of an old fireworks and munitions plant in the southwest corner of town.

“This project is taking way too long,” said Donald White. “Will it be done in our lifetime, in five to 10 years?”

The answer depends on the cleanup strategy selected for the 240-acre site, said Len Pinaud, a regional site manager for the state environmental agency.

“Some sites are easy and are cleaned up in five years,” said Pinaud. “This is a very complicated site. When we pick a remedy in 2013, we’ll have a more certain timeframe.”

More than six decades of munitions manufacturing and testing at the site armed the U.S. military during four wars. It also polluted the soil and water with enough mercury, lead and other chemicals to qualify it as a federal Superfund site.

Hanover selectmen have fought efforts to have the federal Environmental Protection Agency step in with a Superfund designation, opting to work with the state and negotiate a cleanup plan with the parties responsible for the contamination – the U.S. Department of Defense, Rockland-based National Coating Corp. and MIT, which used the site as a place to dump toxic waste.

Despite concerns about cancer rates in town, public health official Jan Sullivan said there are “no red flags” that link cancer incidence in Hanover between 2004 and 2008 to the site. Sullivan is director of the community assessment program for the Center for Environmental Health operated by the state public health department.

But some residents were still worried about exposure to dangerous chemicals such as mercury.

“My biggest concern is I’ve got two little guys,” said Tim Costello, a parent who lives off King Street. “Are there soil samples taken from areas with residential homes?”

Pinaud tried to assure people that early testing ruled out contamination on the western edge of the site along King Street.

But Debra Blackladar called on state health officials to look at cancer incidence among Hanover residents who grew up near the site.

“I’m from the high school class of ’80 and a cancer survivor,” she said. “During those years, we played down there (at the fireworks site). Kids came to school with empty shell casings. A lot of us (got) cancer before the age of 45.”